ABSTRACT
Preventive strategies in mental health have been a long time coming. Schizophrenia has seemed like the hardest target-particularly, as up until recently, there have been few effective treatments available and ongoing disability was seen as inevitable. However, an earlier generation of clinicians and researchers speculated on the possibility of intervening prior to the onset of acute psychosis-during the prodrome. It was thought that providing very early intervention-before the condition became intractable-could minimize the disability and upheaval that an individual and his or her family might have otherwise suffered (Meares, 1959; Sullivan, 1927, reprinted 1994). More than fifty years later, these ideas are becoming translated into real-world practice. What seemed like a giant leap forward to those earlier psychiatrists has become a series of achievable steps with some already behind us.
